Impact of verdict the latest painful blow for family

Mar. 9, 2014

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Wesley North visits his son's grave in Republic every couple of days. / Valerie Mosley/News-Leader

Weston North’s Timeline

• Dec. 29, 2011

Weston calls his father, Wesley, from a local gas station, saying he is stranded and needs a ride. Weston calls from the gas station phone, saying his cellphone has been taken. By the time a family friend arrives to pick him up, Weston is gone. • Dec. 30, 2011

Weston’s body is found abandoned in a ditch on Farm Road 178 in Republic. • Jan. 2, 2012

Gabriel Roche is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Weston. • Dec. 11, 2013

Roche goes on trial for the murder of Weston. The case is tried on stipulated facts, meaning both the prosecution and defense agree that the crime occurred. The only debate was whether it was first- or second-degree murder. • Jan. 14, 2014

Roche found guilty of second-degree murder, given a life sentence with possibility of parole. Could leave prison as early as 25.5 years. He’d be 43 years old.

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W eston North knew someone wanted him dead.

Trying to prepare his father on the drive home after a week-long Christmas visit at grandma’s, Weston hinted at the problem.

“He started talking about dying,” his father, Wesley North, remembers. Wesley shrugged off the comment. After all, Weston was only 17.

The teen never voiced specific fears. But he did say something else unsettling: when he died he wanted to be a ghost.

Unknown to Wesley at the time, Weston had also made a vague mention to an uncle that a group of people wanted him dead.

Days later, Gabriel Roche, an angry, drug-dealing, meth-using 18-year-old, made the threat real.

It’s been weeks since Roche was found guilty of Weston’s murder and ordered to prison.

But the pain is still fresh for Wesley and his fiancé, Leslie Mowell.

It might even be worse now.

They are disappointed in the verdict.

And in a way, themselves.

The wrong crowd

The day Weston turned 17, he dropped out of Republic High School. His father was called to pick him up.

He wanted to be an adult — right now. Weston didn’t want to wait. He wanted to start a family.

In his efforts to leave childhood behind, to make his own decisions, Weston fell in with a crowd Wesley despised.

He called them hooligans.

The two often fought about that crowd and Weston’s future in the days leading up to his murder.

Leslie could tell a difference in Weston when he was with Roche.

The normally affectionate and talkative teenager became withdrawn when he was with Roche. Moody even.

“I just had this feeling he wasn’t OK with them,” Leslie said. “I was going to say something.

“But then he got killed.”

Two days before

It didn’t strike Wesley as all that unusual when Weston called him that Thursday evening from a local gas station needing a ride.

But something did bother him — Weston wasn’t calling from his own cellphone.

He told his father some guys had taken it.

At the time, Wesley didn’t think to ask more questions. He was exhausted after working two jobs and driving Weston back from the Christmas visit.

Wesley just thought it was just a teenager being difficult. Wesley told him he’d have to call his mother.

Thirty minutes later Weston called again, still needing a ride home.

One of Wesley’s friends agreed to go and pick Weston up.

But when the friend got there, Wesley would later learn, there was no sign of Weston.

The murder

Wesley started to get unnerved by Friday, wondering where his son must be.

He decided to check Facebook, to see whether any of Weston’s friends knew where he was.

There, posted through the social media website, Wesley found a suicide note, apparently from his son.

At first it shocked Wesley, but then he got to thinking. That didn’t sound like Weston at all.

He went back to the social media post — it had been updated via phone.

But Weston said his phone had been taken.

It was then Wesley started to panic.

He went to Republic Police, showing them the apparent suicide note and filing a missing persons report.

Then the family, worried but hopeful, waited.

The next day, authorities would find Weston in a ditch. Wesley had heard over the radio a body was found in Republic.

He immediately thought the worst. He went straight to the police station.

Authorities told him they hadn’t identified the body yet. But Wesley knew it was Weston. It was hours later that authorities confirmed his fears.

At first, he assumed Weston had been walking home and was hit by a car.

That would have been easier than the truth.

Not an informant

A few weeks before his murder, Weston had gotten in a minor scrape with local law enforcement but had been released without charges.

Roche later told Greene County deputies, he wanted to show himself, his brother “... and whoever could hear for a thousand miles what happens when you mess up.”

But Weston hadn’t snitched, Wesley said. It was all a misunderstanding. Police have confirmed that Weston was not an informant.

But Roche was sure he was.

Roche described to deputies, in great detail, how he chased Weston after first stabbing him in the chest. Weston was able to escape, but only for a short period of time before Roche caught up with him again.

While North pleaded for his life, asking his friend to spare him, Roche told authorities: “All I could say was, F’ you for making me do this.”

Roche admitted slashing Weston’s throat Dec. 31, 2011, and leaving him to die in a ditch near Farm Road 178.

Disappointed in the verdict

Second-degree murder.

Not the more serious first-degree verdict. The judge’s ruling indicates he decided Roche did the killing “knowingly” but there was no proof of “cool reflection” beforehand.

That, even though the defendant admitted to putting on what he called a “murder suit” to prepare for the killing, even though Roche chased Weston down after the teen got away, even though Roche remained relentless as Weston begged for his life.

Wesley was “just dumbfounded.” He couldn’t even bring himself to address the judge when the families got to say a few words.

“I believed in him. He believed in the judge,” Wesley said with anger in his voice.

Leslie, his fiance, did not.

“I really felt in my heart, he’s not going to do this right,” she said of Judge Calvin Holden.

Holden outright criticized the prosecutor’s case, saying at one point in the proceedings “I didn’t know how the state could make a first-degree murder case.”

Before rendering his verdict Jan. 13, Holden discussed at length the confession.

He said listening to it himself — not just reading a transcript — illuminated how disjointed and paranoid Roche was.

“He had extreme paranoia because of his meth addiction,” Holden said.

He never explicitly said it was that confession that made him decide the killing was second-degree murder.

Leslie thinks Holden was lenient because Roche is young. Holden declined comment for this story.

“I don’t think that should have affected it. But it did,” Leslie said.

As much as they blame Holden for the outcome of the case, in part, they also blame themselves.

A different kind of trial

In a traditional trial, a jury hears witness and expert testimony then comes to a decision.

But in this case, Patterson used another strategy.

Called trying the case on stipulated facts, the circumstances of the crime are agreed upon by both sides. It’s a process often used for its efficiency.

There isn’t any testimony. All the evidence is just handed to the judge for a decision.

After Holden convicted Roche on the lesser charge — which brought the judge criticism and could allow Roche to be paroled as young as 43 — Holden told the News-Leader he should not have allowed the case to go forward on the stipulated facts.

In the future, he said, he wants to hear the witnesses. He declined to explain his ruling further except to note that the only actual testimony that informed his decision was through Roche’s videotaped confession.

Wesley said: “It would have been a lot more painful for us to go through a jury trial.”

The family didn’t have to sit through the autopsy photos, or testimony about Weston’s final moments. They didn’t have to hear what kind of pain he was in before he died, or his terror while begging for his life.

Weston’s mother, Erika North, struggled through the details she did hear. She collapsed into sobs while Patterson described Weston’s pleas for his life.

After the verdict was given, she was too emotional to read her own statement to the judge. Patterson did that for her while she cried.

Those close to Erika advised she wasn’t emotionally ready to talk for this story.

As for Wesley, the decision to avoid a jury trial haunts him.

“We would’ve been better to go through it,” Leslie agrees.

They wish they had been strong enough to endure the testimony and anything else that would have come with it.

“It saved us some heartache on that part. But it didn’t come out right,” Wesley said.

“It just prolongs the hurt.”

Moving on

Wesley and Leslie visit Weston’s grave nearly every other day, cleaning it up, decorating for the upcoming holiday and talking to him.

On this visit, it’s decked out with red and pink Valentine’s decorations. There’s also small items from friends who visit.

“I don’t know if it’s healthy,” Wesley said of the frequent trips to the gravestone.